December 2019

This year, we spent New Years on the island of Sao Miguel, which is the largest island of the Azores archipelago. The whole island is absolutely stunning and perfect for nature lovers. The food and hospitality are excellent (though driving in town is quite scary) and oh my can Ponta Delgada put on a New Year’s Eve party!

Accommodations: We spent three nights at Casa Hintz Ribeiro, located in the Ponta Delgada city center, and it was fantastic! The location was perfect – walking distance to great restaurants and the NYE celebration at Portas da Cidade. Parking is pretty limited in Ponta Delgada and the roads are quite narrow, so it was great that the hotel had a garage for us to park our rental car. The rooms are spacious, they offer a complimentary breakfast of local cheese, bread, and fruit every morning and the hotel has a sauna, steam room, and outdoor pool. Highly recommend!

Tours and Activities: We rented a Smart car for the duration of our trip, as many of the sites are well outside of Ponta Delgada. Roads and popular sites are well marked, and we were able to manage navigating the island without using data by loading Google maps on the hotel WiFi before we left for the day.

We split up the island into one day exploring the west side and one day exploring the east. Heading west from Ponta Delgada, the first major highlight is Miradouro da Grota do Inferno that overlooks Sete Cidades. We lucked out that it was a clear and sunny day (December is the rainy season for the Azores) and could see the crater lakes below and the ocean in the distance. This is an absolute must do on Sao Miguel. We also stopped at Miradouro do Rei, which is a pretty stunning overlook next to an abandoned resort. On the far west coast we drove down some pretty major switch backs to get to Ponta de Ferraria. The cliff drops steeply to the ocean and among the rough surf is a semi-protected alcove with a hot spring that empties out into the ocean. Typically you can take a dip by the springs but the tide was too high and the ocean was a little too rough for us to be able to get in. The views were amazing, though, and totally worth a visit.

On our east coast day, the first stop was for a dip in the thermal pools at Centro de Interpretação Ambiental da Caldeira Velha. The pools aren’t super hot, but this place legit looks like Jurassic Park. It wasn’t too crowded so we got to relax and try out the different pools. On our way to the waterfalls at Parque Natural da Ribeira, we stopped at a tea plantation and sampled the locally grown tea. We stopped in the town of Furnas to try the famous Furnas stew (stew that is cooked in the hot springs) but they had already sold out for the day. We still had a very nice meal and this is a cute town to check out (more hot spring pools here as well). As we headed back towards Ponta Delgada, we attempted to go to an overlook of Lago de Fogo but the intense fog that comes with the elevation made it impossible to see anything. 

We had an excellent set-menu New Year’s Eve dinner at Valverde Bistro and Bar, complete with live jazz music and lovely conversation with a couple from Santiago, Spain. After that we headed down to the main square in town for the New Year’s Eve celebration. It was quite the production – they had set up a stage and drink stations at Portas da Cidade, with an awesome band playing, followed by a firework show over the water. It was really well done and a great way to ring in the new year!

Other restaurants we highly recommend: Tasca and Taberna Acor. Delicious and reasonably priced, just make sure you go early or get a reservation.